Keywords. Optimising. This post will tell you all you need to know in order to have your articles at their full potential when it comes to keyword SEO?. Please note that this article covers only keyword optimisation in an individual article or other piece of content, and not for a site as a whole.
Keyword Explanation: Even if you only have a bit of experience with the internet, you will probably know what a keyword is, but, to avoid any misunderstanding, here is a brief explanation.
A keyword is a word that is particularly relevant to a piece of content, e.g. an article, a webpage, a blog post etc. For example, the keywords that I would be aiming to promote for this article are “keyword”, and “optimising”. At a push, you could also include “keywords” and “optimisation“. You will find out later on why these slight changes are significant.
Keywords are used by web developers to push their sites to the top of search engines. This works because search engines like Google use keywords to judge the relevance of an article or site, and then use this information when indexing sites. So an article that has been optimised for the keywords “growing”, “herbs”, and “home”, will have the edge over a site with no optimisation when someone searches in Google something like “tips on growing herbs at home”.
Keyword Optimising Your Content: When it comes to keyword optimisation for an article, some people have the philosophy of just cramming in keywords as often as possible. This is not a brilliant idea, as anybody reading an article will be able to tell when this technique is being used. It doesn’t appear professional and it is not fun to read. Also, modern search engines can tell when this is happening, and tend to avoid pushing this sort of the site up the results.
Rather, you should write for the viewer, and if you stay on topic, the keywords should throw themselves in automatically. Then you can dust over the article, adding more where possible and appropriate.
There are a couple of places where you should try to concentrate your efforts, namely the title of the content, and the beginning and end of your content. Optimising the title should be quite self-explanatory, as it is what search engines actually display as results, and are so very important in catching the attention of readers, and letting search engine crawlers know what your content is about.
However, the importance of the beginning and end of your content may not be as obvious. You probably noticed that the first two words of this article were "keywords" and "optimising", and you may also have noticed the short summary at the end of every axialworldwide.com post. This is because these are the sections most indexed by search engines, and if a reader sees right at the start of the article that they have found something relevant, they will be more likely to keep reading.
A Note on Spelling in Keywords: One thing to remember is that keywords have to be accurate to the letter. A search engine will see "keyword" and "keywords" as two completely different words, so when writing your content you should try to include both plural and singular as much as possible. Also, you should be careful of English/American spellings, for example, you may not want to only include "color" rather than "colour" if you are aiming for an audience on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, if you constantly switch your spelling it make look like you are making mistakes, so you may want to decide at the beginning which you will use. This is mainly only important if the keyword is one that will be searched for directly. So if someone searches for "best baby room color", and you have optimised the keyword "colour", it will not be as effective.
Keyword Optimisation Summary: Basically, keyword optimisation can be summed up like this; (1) Choose between 2 and 5 keywords for each piece of content. (2) Write for the readers, not the search engine. (3) Don’t over-saturate your article. (4) Watch out for spelling.
And that’s it! Now you should be ready to keyword optimise your own content!
Just as a point of interest, here’s how many times I used my two main keywords in this article: "Keyword" – 17 times and "keywords" – 15 times.
This has been axialworldwide. What did you think of this article? Need any more advice? Please contact me via Facebook, Twitter, or the comments box below!
Keyword Explanation: Even if you only have a bit of experience with the internet, you will probably know what a keyword is, but, to avoid any misunderstanding, here is a brief explanation.
A keyword is a word that is particularly relevant to a piece of content, e.g. an article, a webpage, a blog post etc. For example, the keywords that I would be aiming to promote for this article are “keyword”, and “optimising”. At a push, you could also include “keywords” and “optimisation“. You will find out later on why these slight changes are significant.
Keywords are used by web developers to push their sites to the top of search engines. This works because search engines like Google use keywords to judge the relevance of an article or site, and then use this information when indexing sites. So an article that has been optimised for the keywords “growing”, “herbs”, and “home”, will have the edge over a site with no optimisation when someone searches in Google something like “tips on growing herbs at home”.
Keyword Optimising Your Content: When it comes to keyword optimisation for an article, some people have the philosophy of just cramming in keywords as often as possible. This is not a brilliant idea, as anybody reading an article will be able to tell when this technique is being used. It doesn’t appear professional and it is not fun to read. Also, modern search engines can tell when this is happening, and tend to avoid pushing this sort of the site up the results.
Rather, you should write for the viewer, and if you stay on topic, the keywords should throw themselves in automatically. Then you can dust over the article, adding more where possible and appropriate.
There are a couple of places where you should try to concentrate your efforts, namely the title of the content, and the beginning and end of your content. Optimising the title should be quite self-explanatory, as it is what search engines actually display as results, and are so very important in catching the attention of readers, and letting search engine crawlers know what your content is about.
However, the importance of the beginning and end of your content may not be as obvious. You probably noticed that the first two words of this article were "keywords" and "optimising", and you may also have noticed the short summary at the end of every axialworldwide.com post. This is because these are the sections most indexed by search engines, and if a reader sees right at the start of the article that they have found something relevant, they will be more likely to keep reading.
A Note on Spelling in Keywords: One thing to remember is that keywords have to be accurate to the letter. A search engine will see "keyword" and "keywords" as two completely different words, so when writing your content you should try to include both plural and singular as much as possible. Also, you should be careful of English/American spellings, for example, you may not want to only include "color" rather than "colour" if you are aiming for an audience on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, if you constantly switch your spelling it make look like you are making mistakes, so you may want to decide at the beginning which you will use. This is mainly only important if the keyword is one that will be searched for directly. So if someone searches for "best baby room color", and you have optimised the keyword "colour", it will not be as effective.
Keyword Optimisation Summary: Basically, keyword optimisation can be summed up like this; (1) Choose between 2 and 5 keywords for each piece of content. (2) Write for the readers, not the search engine. (3) Don’t over-saturate your article. (4) Watch out for spelling.
And that’s it! Now you should be ready to keyword optimise your own content!
Just as a point of interest, here’s how many times I used my two main keywords in this article: "Keyword" – 17 times and "keywords" – 15 times.
This has been axialworldwide. What did you think of this article? Need any more advice? Please contact me via Facebook, Twitter, or the comments box below!
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